NullPointer
Member
And just when are we not in the middle of an international crisis?
But hey, maybe this is an opportunity. New rule: No Republicans can advance legislation dealing with taxation while the country in on a war footing.
Senate Republicans block pay equity bill
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But hey, maybe this is an opportunity. New rule: No Republicans can advance legislation dealing with taxation while the country in on a war footing.
It's looking really bad for Senate retention, but apparently the Dems have a massive fundraising advantage this year.
It's terrible that even liberals will defend the godawful corporate practice of basing salary on "negotiating ability" which is nothing more than easy cover for companies to engage in exactly these kind of discriminatory and exploitative hiring practices while giving their higher paid workers the illusion of superiority and hindering worker solidarity. White collar jobs aren't magically different than other jobs, and their pay structure shouldn't be either. It's no different than buying into the bullshit about grotesque CEO pay.
There really is no good reason why this stupid practice shouldn't be outlawed. Mandating equal pay for women would be a good start.
There really is no good reason why this stupid practice shouldn't be outlawed. Mandating equal pay for women would be a good start.
Midterms are this year. But presidential is in 2. And if Hillary runs (which she will) this will get a lot of airplay.
There's nothing I can say that wont make me sound like a filthy capitalist. But, we are a capitalist society.
DoktorEvil
Banned
How do you suppose to make pay equal? Not everyone that works turns in equal results.
If she's not reaming the GOP for pay equality, she'll be blaming Congress for the roadblocks they've thrown at President Obama over his 8 year run.
I haven't seen anything that shows pay correlates with results now.
speculawyer
Member
There is no war on women.
doctorblurg
Banned
If they pull themselves up by their bootstraps they'll get there someday!
DoktorEvil
Banned
Yeah, women are paid less than men.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
Can someone give me a situation in which just having equal pay between genders couldn't be a singular legislation because I fail to see one.
I understand there are traditional gender roles for job that demand different pay, but if the gender roles are equally being done between man and women, why can't there just be fair pay?
Are female biological issues being used as a reason to why they can't be fair?
I understand there are traditional gender roles for job that demand different pay, but if the gender roles are equally being done between man and women, why can't there just be fair pay?
Are female biological issues being used as a reason to why they can't be fair?
Funny how this logic never seems to apply to hourly positions.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
I make 20 more baskets of fries per hour than you
If a firm intentionally lowballs its initial offers to employees because it expects the employees to counter, and they have essentially a "real" salary cap behind closed doors, if 60% of the men counter-offer but only 30% of the women do, is it wrong for the business to do this? (I don't think most people would say yes.)
Salary negotiations are just like any other business negotiation. You're exchanging your time and efforts for money and are negotiating an agreement/contract between the employee and employer. For the business, it's just like buying inventory, investing in a new facility, etc. Not everyone is going to be worth the same amount, and the business is going to be looking to pay as little as possible.
I think here's the concern.
Person A: comes in you pay them 50k. They're good but have some difficult to quantify performance issues (such as a bad communicator or somesuch) and doesn't jive with the company "culture"
Person B: Interviews at the place. Has similar experience to person A. But is a much better communicator and is a very good fit for the organization. But they wont take any less than 58k.
Both Person A and B would be doing the same job and you need both. Right now businesses have the ability to hire person b without many issues. I think the GOP is worried that if this law gets passed then either you'd have to give Person A a raise or not hire Person B.
Don't really think it has much to do with gender. It probably has to do with the ability to be flexible with pay. Of course though, this is the GOP so you never know.
Aquamarine
Member
It's about the principle of the government controlling how a business operates.
Government-mandated CEO pay limits is another example...you're telling business owners how to run their business.
They know that discrimination is a real problem and needs to be addressed, but the GOP tends to be opposed (in principle) to the government meddling in private business.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Thank you for repeating what I already read in the thread.
So in a 100% commission based sales job, everyone is going to be paid the same, male or female?
Or are they going to be paid relative to their sales, which can be influenced by characteristics aside from gender?
Yes, there are jobs when the wage gap is egregiously separate, but that is also a result of the labor market, the requirements/conditions of the job, hazard pay(if a job offers such pay), and any fringe benefits and negotiated compensation besides pay, like additional PTO or additional 401K contributions. These things are all negotiable with an employer and any man or woman can negotiate these things. No employer can afford to let any good talent leave without rewarding great work and oftentimes negotiating fringe is cheaper than direct pay raises.
It should be about how one can leverages their talents to make sure the employer benefits and they benefit as well.
What the Democrats want to enforce sounds way too vague for any significant headway against real gender biases in wages.
What does this training consist of?
Who's paying for it?
Who's administering this training?
What employers are forced to adhere to it?
What are these increased legal options?
How would the bill prohibit retaliation against salary information requests?
I'd like to actually see what the bill had in it.
C'mon, this is midterm fuel. If there was honest to God legislation, wouldn't you think the terms would be more fleshed out?
I'd argue that CEO pay limits are actually not at all an example of this.
In publically shared companies CEO pay takes away from shareholders and since the CEOs essentially grant themselves tons of options and thereby diluting everyone else's votes they largely can get away with it.
Private firms? Sure. Pay yourself whatever you want. Public...well, that's different.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The government already does that to an absurd degree though. I mean, I'm assuming you don't have a problem with literally all regulation about how businesses conduct their operations.
Aquamarine
Member
Yeah. That's the point. There's too much regulation so they are hesitant to burden people with even more.
So you admit there is a problem, because it sure seems like you are writing it off as a non-issue.
Commissions aren't wages.
As far as benefits go, I'm quite certain the pay disparity between men and women isn't differences in 401k plans.
Aquamarine
Member
I mean like...if there were manadatory pay limits that significantly crippled CEO salaries because of the whole "The CEO should only make 10 times of what his employee makes" philosophy.
Generally GOP fears of over-reaching legislation are unfounded (on a national level, anyway), this specific example is more of a "stopped clock is right twice a day" thing.
Still don't see a problem with the multiplier paradigm.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Really? Re-read my post. You're picking a fight with someone who agrees that the wage gap is large between genders.
I only added the fact that multiple factors fall into negotiating wages, one of which is economic trends, which individuals can't control, and negotiation of additional compensation and benefits, which is something individuals have some level of control over.
InvaderZimmer
Member
Here's some interesting info I found at Pew. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/on-equal-pay-day-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
According to Pew the White House claims that women make 77% of what males earn.
Pew's research found the gap was closer to 84% and younger women was 96%. The gap between gender pay has narrowed from the 80s from 64% to the numbers above.
Pew claims that during their survey they found that women are way more likely to take career interruptions to care for family members. I have heard this from countless friends who think the pay gap is in large part due to these career interruptions. This graph is pretty shocking.
All this said I have no idea how to fix this, not sure a law about equal pay covers maternity leave, or anything about these career interruptions.
According to Pew the White House claims that women make 77% of what males earn.
Pew's research found the gap was closer to 84% and younger women was 96%. The gap between gender pay has narrowed from the 80s from 64% to the numbers above.
Pew claims that during their survey they found that women are way more likely to take career interruptions to care for family members. I have heard this from countless friends who think the pay gap is in large part due to these career interruptions. This graph is pretty shocking.
All this said I have no idea how to fix this, not sure a law about equal pay covers maternity leave, or anything about these career interruptions.
This is actually a big issue that no one really talks about. I think most people look at it and think right away "A woman will get paid less!" and stop there. And that might be true for some industries but there's a lot of factors that this approach ignores. I mean I've seen it a ton. Let me give a real world example, I work in consulting. That requires a crapload of travel. Now in the consulting companies that I've been with women get paid the same (at times more) than men. That doesn't mean there aren't companies that don't, but in my experience this has been the case. Now I've seen where a woman gets pregnant and takes maternity leave off and comes back and everything mainly goes back to normal. No issues.
But some decide that travelling that much is not very conducive to being a mom and they leave consulting. Since consulting pays a premium because of the travel, most will take a paycut to no longer have to travel. This same thing happens when men decide to leave when they become dads, but men leaving after a child isn't nearly as prevelant as women. Certainly, there's an issue in society here that expects women to leave their travelling job instead of the men, and that's a worthy discussion to have. But can you legislate a solution to this? I've seen women that stayed in consulting but gave up travelling as much and scaled back their billable hours and as such weren't in the limelight when it came time to promotion compared to some young upstart that has the luxury of throwing themselves completely at something.
It's a big difficult thing to try and solve.
But some decide that travelling that much is not very conducive to being a mom and they leave consulting. Since consulting pays a premium because of the travel, most will take a paycut to no longer have to travel. This same thing happens when men decide to leave when they become dads, but men leaving after a child isn't nearly as prevelant as women. Certainly, there's an issue in society here that expects women to leave their travelling job instead of the men, and that's a worthy discussion to have. But can you legislate a solution to this? I've seen women that stayed in consulting but gave up travelling as much and scaled back their billable hours and as such weren't in the limelight when it came time to promotion compared to some young upstart that has the luxury of throwing themselves completely at something.
It's a big difficult thing to try and solve.
Here's some interesting info I found at Pew. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/on-equal-pay-day-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
According to Pew the White House claims that women make 77% of what males earn.
Pew's research found the gap was closer to 84% and younger women was 96%. The gap between gender pay has narrowed from the 80s from 64% to the numbers above.
Pew claims that during their survey they found that women are way more likely to take career interruptions to care for family members. I have heard this from countless friends who think the pay gap is in large part due to these career interruptions. This graph is pretty shocking.
All this said I have no idea how to fix this, not sure a law about equal pay covers maternity leave, or anything about these career interruptions.
Most of the times the mother stays home is that she makes less than the father. If you're going to lose a day, the partner with the lower paycheque is gonna take that L.
gutter_trash
Banned
Government mandated paid maternity leave......... every other Western nation has em
Zoe
Member
That doesn't solve the loss in experience though.
Because it's not the governments business. If the shareholders wants to pay their CEO a gazillion dollars when there employees are paid minimum, they can, it's their company.
1) The shareholders don't directly decide CEO pay.
2) The ever expanding wealth gap is the government's business.
The Librarian
Banned
Seriously. If Congress isn't going to pass anything because "POLITICS! ELECTION YEAR! GOTCHA BILLS!" (which for some reason entails virtually all bills lobbied nowadays) then why even bother meeting until next year? Might as well go ahead and take yet another vacation because they sure as fuck aren't doing their jobs.
Zoe
Member
At least a third of the women in that study have completely quit or taken "significant" time off.
This is a complex issue this simple-minded legislation can't solve so easily. I'm with the republicans here, even though our reasoning as to why are probably completely different.
Woman should have fairer pay, for sure, but I don't see how legally mandating things like this helps. From the article
Seems kind of broad strokes to solve such an issue as this. Like "well, we're not sure what we can do about this, or if legislation is even something that will help here, but hey let's try this because why not." Offer training for salary negotiations? Is that assuming women are bad at negotiating or something?
As for the legal options to fight pay disparities, employers are not legally obligated to disclose other employees pay, actually it's probably a breach of the employees privacy. So if I had a job, and a woman had the exact same job, apart from me telling her what I made and her telling me, the company isn't going to provide that information to either of us. So I guess I wonder how one goes about making a legal case out of a pay disparity? Unless I'm mistaken, maybe some state's have some means of getting salary information of coworkers? Seems like private information, between he employer and the employee, to me.
Woman should have fairer pay, for sure, but I don't see how legally mandating things like this helps. From the article
Seems kind of broad strokes to solve such an issue as this. Like "well, we're not sure what we can do about this, or if legislation is even something that will help here, but hey let's try this because why not." Offer training for salary negotiations? Is that assuming women are bad at negotiating or something?
As for the legal options to fight pay disparities, employers are not legally obligated to disclose other employees pay, actually it's probably a breach of the employees privacy. So if I had a job, and a woman had the exact same job, apart from me telling her what I made and her telling me, the company isn't going to provide that information to either of us. So I guess I wonder how one goes about making a legal case out of a pay disparity? Unless I'm mistaken, maybe some state's have some means of getting salary information of coworkers? Seems like private information, between he employer and the employee, to me.
The Librarian
Banned
Well technically the can and most do. The issue is that the CEOs grant themselves stock and more stock and more stock until they hold like >35% of the company stock then say "I'm going to pay myself eleventy billion dollars. Let's vote on it!"
Since most charters require a simple majority and the CEO will already own 35% of it, they only need 16% of the shareholders to agree.
That's why it's a government problem. Many CEOs own in the high 40%s and they can just keep giving themselves whatever pay they like as the shareholders saying "No" and stopping it is at times a statistical impossibility. And it's not as simple as saying "if you don't like it don't buy the stock." They might like the company and believe in it but it'd do better if it had less executive overhead. Is that enough to get out of an otherwise profitable venture? Typically not.
But many of them will still want to do that if they're able to. We can do a lot to ease other issues- but pregnancy is still going to take a big physical toll on a person. If you're making enough as a couple to get by on one person's salary, taking the time off a career to have a few kids and go back to work part-time once they're older sounds like a great plan (no matter the gender of the person staying at home.) If they're making the same amount - the physical logistics just tend to favor having the mom stay at home, especially if the plan is to have a few kids within a few years of each other.
You're obviously more versed in it than I, I thought typically the board decided compensation packages, and the average shareholder really had no control over it.
Depends on the company. Some companies let the board make the decision but many put it up for a vote.
DoktorEvil
Banned
That was my initial problems with the Bill at first glance.
Isn't it sexist to assume that men are better negotiators than women? Is there any statistical data to back the assertion that women require negotiation training?
Also, I found issue with who's going to pay for said negotiation training. Is it taxpayers? Employers? Local government? Why/How is government planning to enforce businesses to pay for negotiation training that'll hurt business more than help it?
Finally, the issue you brought up regarding privacy among pay. Divulge everyone's pay and they'll be more issues than there was when employees are allowed to not divulge pay.
I said before in my previous comment, this Bill only feels like midterm fuel to attack the GOP with. Voting it down allows Democrats to say that the GOP is holding women's right back.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Dems are desperate to win midterms right now, so I can see this being a slight tick in their favor.
Dude Abides
Banned
ITT nobody bothers to read the actual proposed legislation and blathers on like it actually requires equal pay without regard for reasons an employer might differentiate.
https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84/text
https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84/text
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